Impact of Brown Algae Supplementation in Drinking Water on Growth Performance and Intestine Histological Changes of Broiler Chicks

Abstract

imited research suggests the effect of brown seaweed in animal nutrition for improving gut health and performance, but there isn't any research suggests the effect of oral liquid seaweeds brown algae in broiler nutrition. So, this study was aimed to evaluate the effect of liquid brown seaweed algae (Ascophyllum nodosum) supplementation on broiler chick's performance and their intestine histology. The experimental chicks (total number of 120, one-day old, Indian River chicks) were used and fed the same diets during the experimental period (1-35 days). Brown seaweed algae were added in fresh water at the concentrations of 0 and 1 ml/ liter fresh water. Results indicated that chicks received 1 ml liquid brown algae/1 liter of drinking fresh water had the greatest body weight gain, better feed conversion ratio, significant increases in total protein, albumin, and globulin and significantly decreases in total lipids and total cholesterol than that in the control chicks. On the other hands, water consumption and relative weight of carcass were not significantly affected by the algae supplementation. Histological observations concluded that birds, which received brown algae in drinking fresh water, had better intestinal health in terms of welldeveloped villi with their columnar epithelial lining, which indicative of an increase of the digestive and absorptive surface area leading to better nutrient utilization. These results suggested that liquid brown algae have a beneficial effects on the growth performance, intestinal development without any side effects and we can replace it with powder brown algae in broiler chicks, but we need more researches to confirm this item.

Seaweeds, Intact and Processed, as a Valuable Component of Poultry Feeds

“…Zahid et al (2001) showed that broiler chickens (Hubbard) fed on the normal feed containing brown seaweeds (10%, 20%, 30% and 40%) had higher body weight and a lower amount of fat while higher of protein as compared to controls [83]. Similar results were reported also for brown seaweed-Ascophyllum nodosum-which was added as a liquid to drinking water (1 mL/L) of Indian River chicks and significantly increased dressing color, breast width and length and decreased body fat when compared to the control chicks [53]. Much work has been dedicated to other brown seaweed-Sargassum sp.…”

“…Seaweeds can also be used in poultry nutrition in the liquid form (as extracts) or as extracted compounds and post-extraction residues. Abou El-naga and Megahed (2018) [53] examined the effect of brown seaweed (Ascophyllum nodosum) liquid in drinking water (1 mL/L) on broiler chickens' performance and their intestine histology, while Li et al (2018) tested ulvan extracted from green seaweed (Ulva sp.) as a feed additive for laying hens used at doses of 0.05%, 0.1%, 0.5%, 0.8% and 1% [47].…”

“…In poultry production, broiler chickens are selected for rapid growth, heavier breast weight and increased muscle mass. Many papers examined the effect of seaweeds incorporation into the diet of broilers on their production performance and carcass traits (e.g., [18,20,28,29,32,33,36,48,49,53,62,63,75,[83][84][85][86][87][88]). Generally, seaweeds positively influence meat quality, which is usually improved as a consequence of the reduction in fats.…”

“…Effect on egg composition: − Increase in the n-3 fatty acids content in eggs [44] − Increase in the n-9 fatty acids content in eggs [70] − Improvement of the content of protein in egg [56] − Decrease in egg cholesterol and triglycerides [40,44,46,47,57,70,80] Improvement of meat quality: − Lower fat content [20,49,53,83,87,88] − Higher content of protein [83] Egg-laying rate and egg quality parameters: − Increase in laying rate [31,35,40,43,80] − Increase in the egg weight [40,43,46,51,56,81] − Increase in the yolk color [40,43,44,46,47,[55][56][57][58]65,70,81] − Increase in the albumen height [44,50,56] − Increase in the Haugh unit [44,51,56,…”